The next 60 Starlink satellites from the Internet are awaiting a trip from Cape Canaveral to space aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday night, while SpaceX seeks regulatory authority to expand home and office network services for planes, ships and trucks.
SpaceX tested a 229 foot tall (70 meter) Falcon 9 rocket at 6 pm EST (2300 GMT) on Monday at pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Retaining clamps held the launcher on the ground while the engines generated 1.7 million pounds of thrust for several seconds.
The static fire test was an important milestone before SpaceX proceeded with the launch of Falcon 9 and 60 Starlink payloads at 9:58 pm EST on Tuesday (0258 GMT on Wednesday). SpaceX confirmed in a tweet on Monday night that the launch remained on schedule.
The nightly launch of the rocket will add another 60 Starlink satellites to the growing Internet network, bringing it closer to full commercial service. Satellites are already providing Internet service to consumers on a beta test basis.
SpaceX has launched 1,205 Starlink satellites to date, including prototypes. More than 1,100 of the Starlink satellites appear to be working, discounting test spacecraft and failed satellites, according to a catalog maintained by Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and widely respected space activity tracker.
The Starlink network may eventually reach more than 10,000 satellites, but the first portion of Starlinks will have 1,584 satellites orbiting 341 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth on paths inclined 53 degrees from the equator. SpaceX has the approval of the Federal Communications Commission for some 12,000 Starlink satellites over a range of altitudes and slopes, all within a few hundred miles of the planet. The low altitude allows satellites to provide high-speed, low-latency connectivity to customers and helps ensure that the spacecraft naturally enters the atmosphere faster than if it flew away from Earth.
Starlink is already providing interim beta service in high-latitude regions, such as the northern United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. More Starlink launches this year will allow for an expanded coverage area.
SpaceX is accepting orders from prospective Starlink customers, who can pay $ 99 to reserve their place in the queue to obtain Starlink service when it is available in their area. For people in the southern United States and other lower-latitude regions, this should happen in late 2021, says SpaceX.
Once confirmed, customers will pay $ 499 for a Starlink antenna and modem, plus $ 50 for shipping and handling, SpaceX says. The subscription will cost $ 99 per month.
The launch on Tuesday night will take place less than six days after the most recent launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9, which also delivered 60 Starlink spacecraft to orbit from platform 39A at Kennedy Space Center, a few miles north of platform 40. SpaceX uses both the launch facilities on the Florida Space Coast.
Another Falcon 9 launch on platform 39A – again carrying Starlink satellites – is scheduled for 5:06 am EST (1006 GMT) on Saturday.
The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket due to launch on Tuesday night will head north-east from Cape Canaveral to deliver the 60 Starlinks to a transfer orbit between 161 miles and 174 miles (260 and 281 kilometers) in altitude. The first stage will be shut down and dropped from the top stage of the Falcon 9 in about two and a half minutes of mission, and will head for a vertical landing on the SpaceX drone ship “Just Read the Instructions” parked in the Atlantic Ocean east of Charleston, South Carolina.
The first phase reinforcement flying on Tuesday was launched and landed on five previous missions, starting with the May launch of the Crew Dragon test flight with astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. The payload fairing, which protects Starlink satellites during the first few minutes of launch, includes one half recovered from two previous missions and the other half with a recorded launch.
Two additional SpaceX vessels have been dispatched to the Atlantic Ocean to retrieve the halves of the cargo fairing after Tuesday night’s launch.
Starlink satellites are built by SpaceX in Redmond, Washington, and each spacecraft weighs about a quarter ton on takeoff. They are equipped with power-generating solar panel wings, krypton ion propellants for propulsion and displays to decrease their brightness for people on the ground, an attenuation added to Starlink satellites last year after astronomers raised concerns that the spacecraft would ruin some telescopic observations.
Amid SpaceX’s accelerated launch cadence, the company is developing the production of terrestrial terminals, routers and other equipment for shipment to Starlink customers. A job list posted online last week suggested that SpaceX plans a manufacturing center in Austin, Texas, to produce consumer-oriented Starlink hardware.
SpaceX filed an application with the FCC on Friday for approval to deploy end-user stations it calls “Ground Stations in Motion” or ESIMs. The mobile terminals would be mounted on land vehicles, ships and planes, SpaceX said in the process.
Mobile stations are “electrically identical” to the $ 499 terminals already authorized by the FCC for fixed consumers. The federal regulator previously issued a license for SpaceX to field up to one million end-user earth stations designed for homes, businesses, schools, hospitals and other types of customers.
Starlink terminals designed for mobility have “brackets that allow them to be installed in vehicles, boats and aircraft,” SpaceX wrote in the filing with the FCC. The terminals will communicate with the Starlink satellites visible above a 25 degree elevation in the sky.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, tweeted on Monday that mobile terminals will not be used in smaller vehicles, such as Tesla cars, because “our terminal is too big”.
“This is for aircraft, ships, large trucks and RVs,” Musk tweeted.
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